another week for the markets. in new york the dow closed down almost 173 points capping a fourth straight week of losses for investors. experts say the markets are volatile because of fears of another u.s. recession and uncertainty in europe's financial system. america's future leaders, where will they come from and how do you raise one? christine romans goes straight to depak show pra for answers. "your bottom line" starts right now. we're taking on loads of college debt but are students prepared for higher education and should it be measured by standardized tests? good morning, everyone. i'm christine romans. plus, america's future leaders, where will they come from and how do you raise one? we go straight to depak chopra for that answer. find out the top five spots for jobs in this country. let's get to it.

elsie granderson, a cnn.com columnist and steve perry an education contributor. the latest act scores show only one in four high school graduates is ready for college. the test used for college admissions shows only 66% of the 2011 class met the benchmark for english. 45% for math. 30% for science. so steve, do these figures accurately reflect student preparedness? >> it absolutely does reflect how prepared students are because if it were the a.c.t. in and of itself we may be able to write it off. at least one third, one third of children going into college are taking remedial classes. in addition to that, we can look at the state standardized examinations in addition to some of the internationally normalized standardized examinations and what we're finding is that american students are simply not prepared for college. >> elsie, as students prepare to go back to school, many teachers are not, brutal budgeting season

this summer has left most of america in pretty education dire straits. at least 34 states and district of columbia cutting aid from k to 12 schools, worse for higher education, 43 states are cutting budgets there. the list goes on for states laying off teachers. we just saw the a.c.t. studies that wow, we need to be doing more, bus we're going to have less to do it with. does it make you want to pull your son's education out of uncle sam's hands and put him in private school. >> it drives me crazy we don't seem to get it. the correlation between poverty and testing and scores and academic are connected. if you look at the top four or top eight state with the lowest a.c.t. scores they happen to be the poorest, some of the poorest states in this country. so i don't understand why we don't seem to use this information that we're getting, connecting poverty with education and academic approve comment. it drives me crazy.

>> while funding for their education continues to go down, their debt to get a college education that they need to compete, is going up. according to the federal reserve bank of new york, student loan debt has increased 25% just since 2008. steve, look at this chart here. you can compare student loan debt with all other debt and you can see, look at that top line, that's student loan debt. everything else we're either cutting back on or can't get any more of. we are piling on to the student loan debt. it seems as though you just can't win, steve. >> the colleges are working to create a more compelling academic experience, academic and social experience. they're constantly building. if you've been to your alma mater they're constantly building. they don't have the money to do so, so they're passing those expenses on to the children. and the children who are most in need, cannot afford it. >> el zi, talk about community colleges, talk about maybe getting preparation at community colleges for some things you're weaker in before you go to a state school or private school.

people have to be strategic about getting that degree and remind me, we love the degree, the degree will mean a 4% unemployment rate as opposed to a 9 % unemployment rate. >> absolutely. but you're going to have to start looking at, i've been harpg on this for some time now, there are a lot of 200 and 300 level courses that you can take at the community ledcollege lev that cost significantly less. you have to stop looking at school as a four-year rite of passage and like a six or maybe seven-year investment, you have to be smart with your money and smart with your time and decision making. >> the tests and the ap credits, and i'm sure steve, you've probably counseled your kids, right, at school to try to get credits before they get to college. >> as a matter of fact, we're in early college high school, so, in fact, most of our students leave with anywhere from 15 to 30 college credits and makes them a more interesting student to the college and makes them a

more well-rounded student who's already prepared, specifically we take some of the introductory courses that really hurt children while they're in their first year, take out the english 101 and bios and early low-level classes that many of them don't have much interest in, but are prerequisites when they get into college. >> elsie and steve, thanks both of you. this conversation continues every week. cutbacks on the state level and same time piling on all this debt, we'll keep talking about. get ready to be inspired. coming up, you're going to meet some of the future leaders of this country and when depak chop pra speaks people listen. he'll speak to us next. like our crab and seafood bake... or our snow crab and crab butter shrimp. my name's jon forsythe and i sea food differently.

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where's the leadership in washington? our long-term debt is becoming the next generation's problem but with a lack of leadership at the top, how do you inspire future leaders to solve these problems? let's ask someone who teaches leadership, deepak chopra, author of "soul of leadership"

at the kellogg school of management at northwestern university. welcome to the program. >> thanks for having me. >> this recent debt debacle, many questioning where the leadership is coming from and whether we have seen the kinds of traits that are going to help us solve our problems. >> i think the only way to tackle leadership is to become leaders ourselves. we need a grassroots moment of leadership, which is based on solid principles. instead of looking at the problems and asking ourselves, what's the problem, we start to -- we need to start asking ourselves, what's the creative opportunity right now. we're trying to adjust the economy by tackling things like tax or adjusting the interest rates and all those little things, when we actually should realize that america has not lost its creativity, its innovationp, all the stuff is still coming out of america, we haven't lost our ability to produce or manufacture or provide services. it's psychological. the whole thing is

psychological. leadership is a psych logical phenomenon. we need to take the real principles of leadership right now, see what are the needs. right now, the needs are america is feeling insecure, america is at war outside and inside, inside, we have so much decisiveness in our political parties, and feeling a lack of self-esteem. we think oh, we can't produce anymore, but everything that's right still exists. these gyrations of the stock market up and down, up and down, we didn't lose anything in one day and suddenly we lost a trillion dollars. >> meet a group of kids who didn't think they would have a chance to attend princeton university but with the help of an organization that focuses on finding america's future leaders that's how they spent the summer. take a look. >> reporter: in this debate class the arguments may be hypothetical. >> i came from the projects and i live in the low-class, low-class neighborhood. >> reporter: for most of the the students they hit close to home.

demetrius cooper is one of 60 high school students calling princeton university home this summer. they come from all corners of the country. they also come from racial and socioeconomic backgrounds considered underrepresented in the national leadership pool. >> my family is in the chicken farm business and because we barely got [ inaudible ] huge loan so we can't hire people to help us. usually me and my sister gou ou and help, picking eggs and stuff. >> reporter: the leadership for diverse america selects promising students to help them go on to highly competitive universities. each day, students take classes preparing them for college-level work and there are trips to new york city and college tours. all at no cost, thanks to board members like this person. his foundation has given more than a million dollars to the program. >> the best leaders from every group brought together is a very exciting proposition for me and very much a part of our national dna. >> reporter: for him, it's not

just about financial support. he's become a role model to students like hey sus franco. after failing the fifth grade, jesus is a pen graduate with ambitions to go to harvard law school and he's paying it forward. >> i see the impact it had on me and having been here at princeton the past two summers, i always see the impact it has on the students and the type of relationships and connections that i make with the students and it's always personally gratifying just to see the whole process all over again. >> reporter: for leda, it's not just about college access but leadership. >> by the time students are out of here, they really take ownership of their own education and they will fight for it. just like anybody will fight for any civil rights cause. but they will do it in a rigorous way, critical way, and responsible way to which they contribute to communities. >> to learn more about leda go to ledascholars.org. want to bring in deepak chopra. what are the young people and programs like this doing right? you say our leadership today is

antiquated and it's broken and that we need a new generation, new way of thinking for leaders? >> i have an acronym i use, "l" stands for look and listen, not just the eyes of the flesh but the mind and the soul. "e" stands for emotional bonding and team management. "a" stands for awareness. what are we seeing? what are we observing? what are we feeling? what's the need right now? what's the best response to the need? "d" stands for doing. action, orientation, smart goals. "e" for empowerment. "r" for responsibility and "s" for sin con nisty. we have to look at what is the immediate need in this country? and these kids are getting the right training, by the way. and that's the kind of training we need our young leaders to take over. you know, not looking outside for leadership, but bringing the leader within you outside. that's what education means. to bring out what's already

there. >> so let me ask you about this crisis in america, the self-esteem problem as you call it in america. does it go away with time? is it something we fix through leadership? is it something that we fix, deepak, through ourselves, that we have to face our own personal reality and figure out how to love the life we have and live it better? >> it's both. i think right now, we need to stop complaining, condemning and criticizing and finding whose fault it is. each of us is here to make a difference. we should ask ourselves, what are my unique gifts, what are my unique talents, how can i put them to use. who can i hang out with and collaborate with so we can actually make a difference. how can we be the change that we want to see in the world? as ghandi said. i know a lot of people right here in new york city who are doing that, who are fired, out of jobs, they found who they were, collaborated with other people. i know a woman who was just fired from a high-tech company. she loves to cook. she started a home cooking

catering service and has employed ten other people to serve ethnic foods in the city and doing better than most restaurants are these days in this economy. there's always opportunities. i think the first thing you have to do is change your perspective. instead of asking what's the problem, what's the opportunity, how can i make a difference, who are -- are there people there i can connect so easily now with linkedin, with social networks, other people who are -- share the same passion, let's get together and make a difference. >> so interesting. because it's connections when you talk to the so-called experts about the job market or starting business, the connections are so incredibly important and connections come with knowing yourself and the people around you. deepak chopra, author of "soul of leadership" and many, many other books, it's always a pleasure to see you. >> thank you. >> the top five spots in the country look for if you're wanting a job is your city on this list? find out next. know, the ones who do a super job? superpages.com®.

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>> thank you.

the state of jobs in this country depends on where you live, what state you live in, even then it can vary widely from one community to the next. casey wian shows us two cities in california at the top and bottom of the state's unemployment chart where life is very different and in some ways, very much the same.

>> reporter: delain no, california, a mostly agricultural community, has the state's highest unemployment rate. it's visible downtown and at the career services center. >> it's very hard looking for work in delano. >> how many jobs do you think you've applied for in the last three or four months? >> probably like about 20 to 25. >> i'm discouraged i guess. >> reporter: nestled in the hills 250 miles north is lafayette, california's lowest jobless rate and a downtown seemingly aaway. >> so you've got a lot of stay-at-home soccer dad people who can afford to stay home and not be part of the workforce. you have a lot of small businesses here that are individually owned, and a lot of home-based businesses as well. so you add all those together and the unemployment picture looks pretty good. >> reporter: here's that picture graphically. delano's unemployment rate is nearly 37%, nine times that of lafayette at 4%. the swansons moved to lafayette

in november, attracted by its beauty and mostly its highly rated public schools. >> a great public school system tends to be something that draws a lot of people to the town. >> we felt like if we could live in this community and be able to send our kids to public school, we'd rather do that. >> reporter: lafayette's location near silicon valley and san francisco and convenient public transportation also help. 20% of its residents are hires. nearly 20% of delano's 53,000 residents live in its two state prisons. the most here are dependent on seasonal farm jobs. historically, the family trade for real estate broker, john lara. his father helped cesar chavez organize farm workers. >> i'd help them carry the bags of beans and stuff that we used to -- my sisters and my mom used to harvest. >> reporter: now many of those jobs are done by machine. >> little by little, all those workers that normally would have done that, during their season, now they're being phased out. so cities like delano, if they didn't prepare for that 20, 30

years ago, now they're looking for industrial jobs, manufacturing jobs. >> reporter: mari belle reyna is in her first week as city manager. >> job creation is number one and we have some projects currently in the works that will help that job creation. >> reporter: 700 jobs could come from this planned commercial center an cord chored by a walm. 500 more are coming from this citrus packing plant. >> the city is really trying to take steps forward, yet with the economy and people being in such a mode of caution, it holds you back. >> reporter: here in delano, there are plenty of signs that the city continues to struggle to create jobs. there used to be two movie theaters in town. this is all that's left of the last one. but here in downtown lafayette, the economy remains strong. strong enough to support 65 restaurants in a town of just 24,000 people. >> reporter: the city boasts a

fiscally conservative local government, that encourages residents to shop locally and doesn't fix roads unless there's money to pay for it. >> we just don't take on things that we don't think we can afford. >> reporter: though councilman don katzman helps lead the city with the state's lowest jobless rate, he's been out of work for nearly three years. >> it's great we have a low unemployment rate compared to other parts of california, but we still have people who are unemployed, and they're affected just as much as people unemployed in a community with much higher unemployment rates. >> reporter: and lafayette's last movie theater has shut down, showing even here nothing is safe. >> proving really that location is everything in the jobs market. beth spener, assistant editor of "money" magazine joins me now. in terms of job growth, california doesn't even make the top 25 best places to live. not really a surprise, though, is it? >> no. overall in the state,

unemployment rate's at about 12%, and if you look at the national rate being a little over 9%, that's a big difference. >> okay, beth, thanks, stick with us. we'll have your top five job spots in the country, next. and the more i focus on everything else, the less time i have to take care of me. that's why i like glucerna shakes. they have slowly digestible carbs to help minimize blood sugar spikes, which can help lower a1c. glucerna products help me keep everything balanced. [ golf clubs clanking ] [ husband ] i'm good! well, almost everything. [ male announcer ] glucerna. delicious shakes and bars. helping people with diabetes find balance. what if we designed an electric motorcycle? what if we turned trash into surfboards? whatever your what if is, the new sprint biz 360 has custom solutions to make it happen, including mobile payment processing, instant hot spots, and powerful devices like the motorola photon 4g. so let's all keep asking the big what ifs. sprint business specialists

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so those 13.9 million still unemployed, how many would be consider willing moving for a job? beth fenner from "money" is back with us to tell us where the jobs are if you think you're ready to pick up and move to a place that has been growing. beth, let's work backwards here. it's broken down by county, so at number five, hamilton county, indiana, a little over 50% job growth over the past decade, right? tell me what's happening there? >> this is a county that's near indianapolis. and really, they have two things going for it. one, they have a lot of regional offices of large companies.

for example, schwab has a large office there. and also, a lot of areas in the farm belt. agriculture's doing a lot better than certain industries, like construction, for example. so that's lifting everybody in that range from nebraska through the midwest. and that's a big plus for them too. >> so hamilton county, indiana. and at number four, you have douglas county, colorado. this county, you say, is all about big business. >> it is. and it's halfway between denver and colorado springs, the two biggest cities in the state. and there are six fortune 500 companies there and the companies love the fact there's a very educated workforce there. so it's kind of a no-brainer to locate there. >> in the number three spot, williamso williamson county, next. education key here in this county. it's near dallas. >> it's near austin, actually. >> sorry, near austin. >> so dell computer is a big employer there and round rock, which is right in town. so if you're into tech, that's the place to be. >> tech in texas. so loudoun county, virginia, 75% job growth in the past ten years. this is 40 miles outside of washington, so i'm betting

there's contractors and government kind of work here. >> yes. this is very much about location, location, location. and also, it's kind of known, that area, as the silicon valley of the east. a little tech corridor, dulles international airport is there, so easy in and out. it's far enough away that it's not so expensive to the city, but you have the advantages of jobs. >> so that's virginia. and now the number one on the list, lizabeth is the county that's close to dallas. tell me about this one. >> it is close to dallas, a very small county, and they have had amazing population growth. when the population is growing, with jobs are booming as well. now, texas has had, the areas around dallas are doing very well. energy jobs are strong and it's just, government has been very pro business. >> rick perry this week, the texas governor, trying to use what's happening in texas, two of the top five are texas counties. >> he does like to take credit for it.